


'cause you color me clear

by feminist14er



Series: four hands and then away [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feminist14er/pseuds/feminist14er
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is born without a soulmark. She becomes a tattoo artist to write her own destiny across her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'cause you color me clear

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who don't know, I sort of revere Wonderland Tattoo in Portland. This started as an homage to that, and quickly spiraled out of control. Title, as usual, from Of Monsters and Men.

_I live the life of letting go_

_Under a starlit night_

_I wrap myself up in a thin sheet of ice_

_Up there, the stars are crystal lights_

 

Clarke opens Neverland Tattoo at the age of twenty-one, and it’s the proudest moment of her life.

\--

Clarke spends the first fifteen years of her life waiting for the mark to appear. She watches as it blossoms on Wells’ skin, sees the matching marks on her parents, sees the lonesome mark on Wells’ dad. She listens to her classmates comment as theirs appear, clarify, define themselves along their skin. Black, colorful, outlines; it doesn’t matter, they come in all shapes and sizes, but everyone has a mark.

Everyone but Clarke.

Around the time she turns sixteen, she decides she doesn’t care, that the soulmarks are a stupid gimmick anyway. She does a lot of philosophy reading as a teenager, and she decides that soulmarks just make people feel pre-destined to choose someone, and she thinks that not having one is a blessing. If there’s a soul mate out there for her somewhere, she gets to choose who it is.

When people ask to see hers, she says it’s high on her thigh, under her pants. She gets some snickers the first couple of times, but eventually, the novelty of the marks wears off for most people, and they stop asking about it. People in high school spend a lot of time fooling around with each other anyway, so when people’s marks don’t match, it’s usually not a big deal.

Clarke never gets one. By the time she’s eighteen, she’s fully resigned to the fact that she doesn’t have one, is never going to have one, and when her mother gives her concerned looks, she stomps on the small part of herself that just wishes she was _normal_.

Instead of worrying about it, she makes out with the first cute girl she sees in college, falls into a series of short relationships, and stops thinking about it. None of her partners ask after it, and she starts to really relax into the idea that it’s not that important.

When she dates Lexa (her first serious relationship, she realizes), Lexa scoffs at the idea of soulamarks. “They’re some sort of genetic anomaly, nothing more. People have made them out to be some sort of predestination, but they’re just a nice way of making people feel like they belong together in spite of everything that says they aren’t a good fit.”

(Lexa’s parents are divorced, Clarke later finds out, in spite of having matching soulmarks).

Lexa’s mark is in the shape of Acheulian point, and honestly, Clarke can’t help but think the sharpness of the tip, exactingly defined on Lexa’s clear skin, is perfect for Lexa’s own disposition, if no one else’s.

\--

Clarke was meant to be a doctor. Her mother was a doctor, and her grandfather before that, and there have been so many doctors in her family that it seemed an absolute inevitability, but after realizing she didn’t have a soulmark, Clarke grew a very quiet rebellious streak and decided that while medicine had been a fine profession for every other person in her family, she wasn’t doing it. Her father tried to talk her into engineering, physics, biology, literally anything traditional to appease her mother, but she was bound and determined to go to art school.

She didn’t go to art school. She went to a small college in the middle of nowhere with a good art department where she could also get a conventional degree.

And it’s in the middle of nowhere that she meets Anya. She’s a striking woman, tall, stunning, with wavy hair, and when Clarke sees the ink covering her arms, she is stunned speechless.

It’s when she starts tattooing that she realizes how embedded the idea of soulmarks is in their daily life. Tattooing is all but forbidden now, and while she knows there are legal shops here and there, she’s never met anyone with actual tattoos. Soulmarks tend to be no larger than the cap of a jar, and that’s considered quite large; most are quarter-sized, intricate tiny things that partners lave their tongues over, leaving bite marks next to them, as if the soulmark itself wasn’t territorial enough.

Anya, though; she has the stems of lavender and rosemary plants twining from her wrists to her biceps, and it is maybe the most beautiful thing Clarke has ever seen.

She doesn’t have a soulmark, but she can make her own, make her own destiny.

\--

It turns out that opening your own tattoo shop is a bureaucratic nightmare. There are laws on laws on laws about what types of tattoos people can get, where they can get them, and under what circumstances. Clarke knows that, one hundred, even two hundred years ago, people could get anything they wanted, anywhere they wanted, as long as they were sober and clean. Soulmarks have changed everything, though, and she’s responsible for any number of laws now, and god help her if someone realizes she’s broken the law.

She’s thinking, though, that she’s not going to follow all of them.

Her first customer, when she opens Neverland, is a woman with fingerprints bruised into her arms, and the white-hot rage that flares along Clarke’s skin is hard to quell. When she sits the woman down, her soulmark is a woodcut drawing of an anatomically correct heart on the inside of her thigh, and she laughs at Clarke’s quizzical look with desperate tears streaming down her face.

“I know that it’s illegal to cover it up, but can you please? He hasn’t seen it yet, doesn’t know that we match, and I think – I think I might be able to leave if it stays that way.”

It _is_ illegal to cover up a soulmark, but Clarke sets to covering it up and refuses payment. When the woman walks out of Neverland, it’s with a lioness in her skin where there used to be a cruel joke.

\--

Clarke gets something of a reputation after that, although it’s quiet and whispered. She sees more and more women, some who talk to her, some who don’t, and each of them leave with something different, something that allows them to stay or leave, do what they need to in order to be safe, and Clarke isn’t earning much money, but she’s surviving on her inheritance from her grandfather and she’ll be damned if she earns her money on the backs of women that the system is ignoring.

Six months into her new work, she gets the first man walking into her shop. He’s the type of man most women swoon over; he has an open face, and he’s charming when he talks to her. She’s waiting for a batch of tools to finish autoclaving and she’s organizing supplies while she does it, thinking about changing the prints she has on the walls.

This man wants his soulmark covered over, and she narrows her eyes at him, assessing him.

“Why?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She knows that men can be victims of abuse, but she’s getting the wrong vibe from this man, and she’s skeptical.

He has the decency to look ashamed. “My girlfriend and I match, but. We’re not soulmates.”

She scoffs. “Isn’t that the whole point of the marks? It makes everything so easy for you all, makes it obvious who you belong with. You can’t say she’s not your soulmate if you match. And even if somehow you aren’t soulmates, you need to have an honest conversation about that. I’m not covering it up for you, it’s illegal.” She rarely hides behind the law; she breaks it too often. This time, though. This time she’s using it.

“Look, I know you cover them up for people. I’m willing to pay a lot for this.” His face is less charming now, although it’s mostly marred by confusion, rather than true anger.

“And I told you no. I strongly suggest you go talk to your partner.” She turns her back on him, waits until she hears the chime over her door before she exhales.

\--

The girlfriend comes in a week later. “I heard you told my boyfriend you wouldn’t tattoo over his soulmark.”

Clarke looks her over, takes in her dark hair, high on her head in a ponytail, the grease-stained clothing she’s wearing. “That’s right. I told him to go talk to you if he was convinced you weren’t soulmates. Is there a problem?”

The brunette sighs. “Well, he broke up with me, so thanks for that.”

Clarke starts to apologize, but the brunette interrupts her. “Look, I’m not here to shoot the messenger. It’s not your fault he’s a dick. But I am wondering - I know you wouldn’t tattoo over his, but.” She hesitates, lifting her eyes to Clarke’s. Clarke can see that, for all that this woman is trying to hold it together, she’s cracking, fraying at her edges.

“I’ll tattoo over yours,” she offers. The woman nods.

“Raven,” she says, holding out her hand. Clarke shakes it, notes the callouses on her palms.

“Clarke,” she responds. “I got the feeling your boyfriend was kind of a dick. You know what you want?”

Raven rolls up her pants, shows her the wrench on the back of her calf. “He thought it was perfect, since I’m a mechanic. I always thought it was really trite, you know? I want something green, something growing.”

Fortunately, that’s kind of Clarke’s specialty. On the side, she does botanical and scientific illustrations; most of the art on her walls is her own, and it heavily features the flora and fauna from around their city. She’s never been outside the temperate rainforest, and she’s not sure she ever wants to. There are hundreds of plants here, and she wants to draw them all in exquisite detail.

Clarke readies her machine, sets out the ink, and gets started.

When Raven leaves, it’s with a smile on her face, and the flowers and leaves of a sage plant adorning the back of her calf.

\--

Clarke has made a name for herself outside of helping people. Tattoos are still strictly regulated, and having tattoos is often taboo, but she’s exquisitely skilled at small tattoos, and she has a number of clients who have sleeves that they keep hidden in public. Working on sleeves are her favorite; she can practically feel the ink growing into shapes under her hands, and her clients give her free reign to dictate the interplay of shapes and space on their skin. She’s no great shakes as a green thumb, but she cultivates gardens, forests, on the skin of her clients.

When she’s out of the studio, she’s out in the forests around her, hood up to keep the rain out of her eyes; she collects samples, dries and presses them. She has dried herbs hanging all over her shop, collected from her neighbor’s garden when she tends to it in their absence. She likes them a lot, doesn’t accept payment from them when they come home; instead, Monty tends to the plants in her shop, trains bonsai trees and leaves them in her window before going to work two doors away from her. They aren’t close, but she’s only been here half a year, and she’s been doing illegal work, so she’s not surprised that her neighbors are leery of her.

She’s a sight herself, these days. She started her own tattoos with oak leaves reaching up in the inside of her tattooing arm, and they’ve rapidly been joined by lavender and rosemary sprigs. Her left shoulder now bears a deer in a circlet of peonies. She has constellations across her chest, and every time she starts a new tattoo, she thinks of writing her own destiny in ink across her body.

She hasn’t seen her mother since she started doing this, got a text message when her father died in a car accident, and she’s burned the world behind her down to write her own story, but it’s on her body, and she’s bound and determined to keep it that way.

\--

She starts hanging out with Raven a lot. When she moved into the city, away from her parents and away from school, away from the shelter of Anya’s wing, she lost any connections to home that she had. She hears from Wells now and again, knows he found his soulmate and is happy. They’re expecting a baby, and her heart aches a little with how much she wants to know that child.

Raven stops by the shop on her way home, often bearing pastries. Clarke’s eyes light up when she brings in the homemade pop tarts from three blocks over (they live in hipster homemade heaven/hell, and Clarke _loves it_ ).

When Raven gets bored waiting for Clarke to finish up on one of her now-regulars, Clarke thrusts a tattoo machine and a pot of ink into Raven’s hands and shoos her away. She finds her three hours later, and Raven has made a mess all over the counters, but she’s also done some of the finest dot work Clarke has ever seen, and as she smacks a kiss to the side of Raven’s face, she offers her a job. 

Raven doesn’t quit as a mechanic, but she starts having hours at Neverland on the weekends, and she’s an instant success.

\--

Clarke feels like tattooing might be starting to take off, but she can’t figure out _why_. Like, yeah, she has instagram and facebook and she takes pictures of the clients that she can, the ones who aren’t trying to hide anything and genuinely like tattoos, in spite of the legal and social mores against them, but she didn’t know _anyone_ with tattoos growing up. And yeah, her parents are (were) bluebloods, so maybe she’s just finally found her group of people, but - she’s skeptical.

She mentions it to Raven one day over a fresh batch of croissants, and Raven looks at her. “People don’t like soulmarks, Clarke. Did that never occur to you?”

Clarke takes a second to recover from her shock. It didn’t occur to her; she was always the odd person out, lacking the defining mark. Admittedly, she mostly hangs out with Raven and her cat, the odd plants she has in the shop and running around her house; she’s not exactly an expert on what the cool kids are into these days. She’s twenty-two years old, and secretly a granny.

“But people aren’t coming into have them covered up,” she argues after a minute.

Raven shrugs, bites into a croissant. “People want to be more than a soulmark. They think that tattoos make a more interesting conversation,” she says around crumbs of pastry. “It means that they have a soulmark, but it doesn’t define them.”

Clarke hums, goes back to her drafting board. She wants to be the person who doesn’t let her lack of a soulmark define her, but it’s times like this that she realizes what she’s missing out on, the fact that people don’t like them. She can’t know that, because she doesn’t even have one.

\--

“Did you know that 5% of the population doesn’t have soulmarks?” Raven asks her one day, not looking up from the bearded man she’s tattooing.

Clarke’s at her drafting table again, fine-tuning the backpiece she’s about to begin on a new client. “No?” she says. “My parents were always mortified that I didn’t have one, so I figured it was, I dunno, just me?”

The guy under Raven’s touch snickers, and Clarke turns around long enough to see Raven glare at him. It’s somebody she knows, maybe someone she works with? Clarke can’t remember, just knows Raven calls him something weird.

“I’ve literally never met anyone else without soulmarks, and that includes some of the super weird tattoo people I hang out with,” Clarke says dryly.

“I mean, have you _asked_ if they have them, or just assumed?” Raven asks with a huff. “It’s not like you’re sleeping with all of them to know, and you’re kind of a dinosaur anyway, so it’s not like you know heaps of them.”

“I know people!” Clarke says in indignation. “There really aren’t _that_ many tattoo artists here, it’s not hard to get to know all of them.”

Raven snorts. “Okay, so of the tattoo artists you know, how many have soulmarks?”

Well, she’s got Clarke there. She looks up, sees Clarke biting her lip, and nods. “Exactly. The people you hang out with on a regular basis might be exactly like you, and you don’t even know. How important can it really be?”

Clarke sighs. She and Raven have had this argument before, and it’s not that Raven is _wrong_ , exactly, but. She doesn’t really know what it was like, either, being shamed by her parents, feeling like she was aberrant, wearing sleeves and pants all the time, lying to friends. It’s not like she was shut away in a castle for being such a freak, but, well. She did feel like a freak. Still feels like it, sometimes. When the inspectors come to look over her shop and make sure everything is on the up and up (if only they knew what she started out doing, what she still does from time to time), she feels their eyes on her, their disdain for the art working its way through her skin.

She hugs her arms to herself, ignores Raven, ignores the sting of her words.

\--

Octavia Blake comes bounding into their shop on a particularly rainy Thursday in March, and Clarke immediately likes her. Her soulmark is a wolf on the right side of her neck, and when she turns in profile, Clarke can see an immediate resemblance between the fierce woman and her soulmark.

She walks up to their desk, leans on it. “Are you Clarke Griffin?” she asks.

“The one and only. We’re booked until May, but I can schedule you after that, if you’re interested.”

“I want a job,” Octavia responds. “I’ve been working out east as an apprentice for six months, and we just moved, and I need a job.”

Clarke looks at her, seriously looks at her for the first time since she walked in. The girl is young, younger than Clarke, but old enough to have done the work she claims. She’s wearing a jacket with sleeves, so Clarke can’t see if she has any ink on her, but her soulmark is unusual; the fine lines and dotwork look like a tattoo, but Clarke’s been doing this long enough to know the difference. It’s genetic, not art.

Still, the girl has a cagey look about her, and Clarke glances back at Raven, before turning back to the girl. “Come on into the back, and let’s talk.”

When they’re sitting down in Clarke’s de facto office, sketchbooks lining the counters and ink pots thrown haphazardly around - it’s a mess, no denying it, but Clarke is only ever back here to do the bills - the girl turns to face Clarke, her chin jutting out. Clarke has been at work for eight hours already, and the last thing she really wants to do is deal with a belligerent young person, but something holds her in place.

“Okay, tell me about yourself. Let’s start with your name,” Clarke says. She stands up, starts making tea, offers to the girl, who shakes her head.

“I’m Octavia Blake. I just moved from out east, like I said, and I need a job.”

“Why here?” Clarke asks.

Octavia scoffs. “I’m sorry, do you even know who you are? You’re one of the only successful tattoo artists, one of the only legitimate tattoo businesses around. Everyone wants to know how you’re doing it.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question,” Clarke says, taking a sip of her tea. Monty’s been growing her a special variety of sage, just for tea, and it’s heavenly, soothing her headaches. She thinks she’s going to need it with this one.

Octavia looks at her briefly. Clarke notes that she hasn’t taken off her coat yet, and it unsettles her a little. “My brother and I just moved. He doesn’t have a soulmark, and his last employer found out and threw us out.”

Clarke’s stomach lurches somewhere to the region of her throat, and she coughs to cover up her surprise.

Octavia looks at her, and a fierce and defensive light enters her eyes. “Is that a problem?”

Clarke feels the hysterical laughter bubbling up from under her breastbone and tries to squash it. She ends up coughing further until Raven hollers, “You haven’t poisoned her, have you? We don’t sanction that here.”

Octavia’s face relaxes a bit at that, and Clarke takes a second to clear her throat and try again.

“Sorry about that. No, it’s not a problem. Um. The reason I started tattooing was because I don’t have one either. Raven’s always talking about how it’s actually not that rare, but I’ve never met anyone else who doesn’t have one. It’s just surprising is all,” she says, trailing off. She looks down, looks back up to see Octavia looking her over with more weight in her gaze. She breathes again, settles herself.

“Okay, so you need a job. Does your brother need a job? Do you need a place to stay?” Clarke asks.

“Just me. We have a place to stay, at least for now,” Octavia says.

Clarke eyes her. She doesn’t want to offend her, but  - “Is it a safe place, where you’re staying? I have room, if you need to move, you know.”

Octavia’s chin juts out just a bit again, and Clarke hopes she wasn’t this stubborn two years ago. Thinks that she probably was.

“We’re fine. I just need the job.”

Clarke nods. “Okay, well, I haven’t seen any of your work. Do you have a portfolio?”

Octavia shakes her head, and finally, finally takes off her coat. “This is the best I’ve got,” she says, rolling up her sleeves. Clarke gasps. She has a series of stunningly colored birds soaring over her arms, and it’s some of the nicest colorwork she’s ever seen. She rolls her stool forward, reaches for Octavia’s arms.

“May I?” she asks. Octavia nods, allowing Clarke to trace the patterns in her skin, feels the healed skin under her hands, and admires the intricacy of the work.

“You’re hired,” she says, as she rolls away. “I’ll need you doing a bunch of stuff at the front desk at first, so people get to know you. Once you start building a client base, we’ll put you in rotation with Raven and I. Any questions?”

Octavia shakes her head, her smile broad across her face. She starts the next day, and Clarke realizes, for the first time, that she’s building something here.

\--

Clarke didn’t really set out to be the first all-female tattoo shop. There aren’t too many tattoo shops anyway - there are more in their little sector of the world than there are elsewhere, but it’s still rare, and having an all-female shop is even more extraordinary. Still, Clarke’s always been a girl’s girl, even before she knew for sure that she was bi, and she feels pretty awesome, inspiring other women and working with them.

It’s a smooth dynamic between the three of them. Octavia brings coffee, Raven brings pastries, Clarke supplies dinners at her house a couple of times a week. It’s all going really well for the first couple of weeks that Octavia’s on rotation with them until a curly-haired man comes barging into the shop and starts yelling at Clarke.

Octavia isn’t even there at the moment; she’s out getting coffee on her break, and Clarke knows she goes on long walks through the city to clear her head. She mostly does faunal tattoos, but Clarke knows she wants to expand into architectural tattoos, and she claims the walks are helping her with that. Clarke doesn’t care as long as there’s coffee, and Octavia is safe and ready for her appointments when they show up.

The man yelling at Clarke is an unfairly attractive man, she thinks to herself. She hasn’t been with a guy in a while, preferring the dexterous fingers and tongues of her female partners, the way they walk in stride next to her and cuddle up with her in the dark of winter, but it’s been a while, and this man, for all his yelling, is quite a lot to handle in the looks department, if not in personality.

Still - “I’m sorry,” Clarke says, cutting him off. “What exactly is it that you want from me?” She has to look up just a bit, and shit, all of a sudden she’s really missing ducking under the arms of taller men, and this is _not the idea right now_.

He looks at her, takes a deep breath. Clarke holds up a hand, preventing him from starting his tirade again. “No yelling.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks when he closes his mouth, but she can see him breathe out, breathe in again. “Are you Clarke Griffin?” he asks.

Clarke fights the urge to roll her eyes at him. She’s not the chancellor, but she’s not unknown, either. “Yes. How may I help you?”

“My sister did an illegal tattoo last night, and the girl showed up on our doorstep later threatening to turn her in. I thought this was a reputable place.”

Clarke frowns. She doesn’t remember anybody coming in yesterday who needed that done, and she always does it herself, doesn’t even let Raven do the illegal tattoos. And - reputable place? It’s a tattoo shop. They’re only barely legal anyway. And - sister?

She looks him over. He’s darker than Octavia, but she can see a slight similarity in their bone structure, the length of their limbs. They’re certainly both stunningly lovely people, which is lucky if this one’s personality is anything like what he’s currently projecting.

She squares her shoulders, looks him in the eye. “I’m going to assume, since you didn’t introduce yourself, that you are Octavia’s brother.” He has the decency to look ashamed, but she raises her hand again when he opens his mouth. “No, no doubt you have more to say about how disreputable I am, but let me assure you: I never would have allowed Octavia to perform an illegal tattoo. We do not do that here, and I have certainly assured her that it is unacceptable.” (She hasn’t, not really. She’s pretty sure O knows exactly what she does when the lights are on but it’s past business hours, but she knows that the younger woman would have talked to her about it.)

“As to your nighttime visitor: I encourage you to call the inspectors and have them investigate.” She doesn’t actually; the inspectors make her skin crawl, and she goes out of her way to live in a neighborhood with good neighbors that look out for each other, protect each other against the necessity of calling in the government forces. They’re all social deviants in different ways; her with her tattoos, and Monty and Miller living together and married, Harper and Monroe with their son down the way, but it’s a safe place, and they keep an eye out for each other.

The man’s forehead is furrowed. “Surely you don’t actually stand by the recommendation,” he says gruffly.

Clarke sighs. “Listen, you can do whatever you want about your nighttime visitor. That person was not a client of ours, whatever they’re saying. I’m sorry that it upset you, and very sorry they upset Octavia, but I’m not affiliated with the inspectors, and can’t offer you any insurance against this sort of thing happening. People don’t like what we do here. People don’t like tattoos. Octavia’s chosen to do this anyway.” She meets his eyes, remembers that he doesn’t have a soulmark. The realization jolts through her, and her gaze slides away. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you…?”

She doesn’t actually know his name, trails off somewhat expectantly. He looks at her, grunts. “Bellamy. Bellamy Blake.” She nods, extends her hand. It’s a toss up these days, whether people will touch her or not. Before she allowed Raven to tattoo the trailing vines on her hands, people were more likely to shake her hand. But it’s warm in the shop, so her long sleeves are pushed up, and her newest and oldest tattoos are visible alongside each other. She’s not sure if she expects him to flinch, but he doesn’t look twice at her before shaking her hand. His grip is strong and sure, but he’s not trying to be a dick by squeezing her hand into submission. She’s appreciating the callouses along his palm when the chime sounds over the door and Octavia comes in from outside, dripping from the rain and carrying coffee.

“Sorry it took a bit longer, the person at the shop didn’t know our order…” She trails off when she sees Bellamy next to Clarke, and Clarke can see her face darken in irritation.

Clarke bites her lips to keep from smiling when Octavia breezes past her brother to set the coffee down. “And this is where the person who does our order is. Fascinating,” she snaps, unwinding her scarf.

“Octavia, perhaps you’d like to walk your brother out? I think he and I have finished our chat.” Octavia looks at Clarke, and then looks at Bellamy, and Clarke is delighted to see that the older Blake looks quite chagrined. Octavia nods at Clarke before gripping her brother by the arm and walking him toward the door. Clarke can’t quite hear what she’s saying, but it’s in a very dark tone for the usually cheerful woman.

Octavia and Bellamy stand by the door for a minute, and while Bellamy is clearly not happy, she can also see that he’s shaking his head, and when Octavia pulls him into a hug, it’s clearly a situation that has resolved.

When Octavia walks back, however, it’s Clarke’s turn to talk to her. “Tell me you didn’t do an illegal tattoo last night,” she says firmly, looking right into Octavia’s eyes.

Octavia maintains eye contact. “I didn’t. It’s someone from my last shop.”

Clarke can feel her eyes widening. “They _followed you_ here?” She asks, incredulous.

Octavia shifts on her feet, averts her gaze. “We. We were really not well liked in our last place,” she says. She’s looking at Clarke with pleading in her eyes. “I promise I’m not going to do it here unless I talk to you first. Please don’t fire me. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Clarke has about a hundred questions she needs to ask now that Octavia has revealed this detail, and that underlying information is maybe also important, but she can deal with it later. She sighs. “Okay. Here’s the deal. For all intents and purposes, no one illegally tattoos here. I do it under very, very specific circumstances, and I have a friend who checks to make sure everything is as it appears before I do it. I will never ask you to do it, and I probably won’t tell you when it’s happening, on whom, or why. We need to be protected, and we need to protect the people we do this for. The inspectors are serious about this being a crime, and I really like what I’ve built for myself here. Do you understand?” Octavia nods.

Clarke runs her hand over her face. “Okay. Next. Is this person going to keep bothering you? Clearly Bellamy didn’t know about this in the first place, but it sounds like this person was bothering you before, yes?”

Octavia shrugs, then nods. “I would see her every now and again, but I just, I don’t know. Didn’t think about it.”

Clarke shudders. She’s quite worried, actually, that this person is some sort of informant for the inspectors. She’s going to need to light the candles to show that they’re closed for illegal tattooing for a while, she thinks absently.

“I’m going to ask you again, and I need you to be really honest this time. Do you and your brother need a place to stay? It’s no inconvenience to me, I have the space.” She looks right at Octavia as she says it, and she can practically see Octavia wilt (which she finds surprising. This is not a wilting type of girl, which leads to her greater concern about this situation).

“Bell’s not going to like it,” she mutters.

Clarke nods. “Leave your brother to me. And leave the apartment to Raven and I. I don’t want either of you going back there from here on out. We’ll find a way to get your stuff out." 

She hands her spare key over to Octavia, tells her the address, and marches her down the street to Monty’s floral shop. “She’s staying with me, but I need you to keep an eye on her while I sort some things,” she says authoritatively. Monty nods, thrusts some flowers at Octavia, and tells her how to arrange them.

Clarke walks off to Bellamy’s coffee shop, hood up and tattoos hidden.

\--

She hasn’t been to his shop before, mostly because she only knew anecdotally that he existed, but Octavia has been bringing them coffee from the same place since she started working with them, and she’s not only grown quite fond of it, but she now has a pretty good idea of where it is, since she’d started thinking about buying her coffee beans there.

It’s a short walk, but it’s raining heavily again, the water dripping from her hood onto the tips of her boots. She doesn’t really want to be out right now, has this feeling that she’s being watched after talking to Octavia.

The thing is that the government has never been accepting of tattoos, and society has followed suit. Soulmarks are widely accepted as the be-all, end-all in understanding social relations, and tattoos, and Neverland in particular could be pointed at as disrupting the perceived social order. Clarke didn’t really set out to be a revolutionary or a firebrand, doesn’t really want the notoriety or the consequences, but: she wants to keep doing this, wants to be able to help people. She’s increasingly not sure that soulmarks should be given the credence they are. 

She shakes her head, glances up to realize that she’s quite close now. She wipes her feet on the mat outside the shop before opening the door to a pleasant flare of warmth. The coffee shop is cozily lit, and there are more couches than real chairs, something that Clarke always finds comforting in a coffee shop. She can already smell the aroma of the coffee as it winds its way into her clothes, her hair, and she can feel herself relaxing infinitesimally. She feels safer inside than she did outside, however unreal her fears of being followed might be.

She gets in line behind a young couple, waits patiently as the barista takes their orders and rings them out. She feels antsy almost in spite of herself, fights the urge to tap her toe as she waits.

The barista looks up at her, asks “What can I get for you today?”

Clarke clears her throat. “I’m actually here to talk to Bellamy, if he’s available?” She refuses to feel embarrassed, however this might look (which the barista clearly thinks, because she’s appraising Clarke, and Clarke is fighting not to flush under her gaze).

The barista must decide she’s acceptable, because, “Wait here,” she says.

Clarke waits, indulges herself by tapping her nails against the counter.

When Bellamy emerges from the back, wiping his hands on a rag, there’s a furrow between his eyebrows, and Clarke has the insatiable urge to smooth it away. She folds her hands together instead, nods at him. His eyebrows raise, and he looks back at the woman, who’s clearly watching the exchange with interest. He nods at her, ducks out the side door and wanders toward Clarke. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon,” he says, nodding toward a table. “Do you want anything while you’re here?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, I’m good. I have coffee back at the shop,” she says, quirking a smile at him. He nods, waits. She interlaces her fingers to keep them from shaking. She’s not sure why she’s nervous, but everything about this day has been surprising, from her attraction to Bellamy to her concern about being followed by inspectors, and it’s thrown her off. 

“Listen, I talked a little more to Octavia after you left, and you’re coming to live with me for a little while.” Bellamy opens his mouth to object, irritation clear on his face. Clarke shakes her head. “No, hear me out. Octavia thinks this person followed her from wherever you lived before. That’s – that’s really bad, Bellamy. I don’t know exactly what happened to you two before, and right now, I don’t need to, but I keep people safe. That’s sort of what I do, and I’m not kidding around here, you can’t be back at that apartment if that person comes back.” 

She pauses, looks at him. The furrow is back, and he’s frowning at her. She clears her throat, continues. “I’ve got an extra room and a pullout couch at my place, and as long as you aren’t allergic to cats, it’s very comfortable. I live in – well, I live in a weird area, but it’s safe, and I trust my neighbors. I’m going to get one of them to move your stuff, because I don’t want you going back to your current place. Octavia’s with the florist down the street from us until I can get you both home tonight.” She looks up at him, tries to gauge the look on his face.

He rubs his hands over his face, looks at her over his fingertips. “It seems like you’ve got everything all figured out,” he finally says.

Clarke shrugs, averts her gaze, looks around the coffee shop. “You won’t be the first strays I’ve taken in, and you probably won’t be the last. What I do – it’s not normal to most people. People really don’t like it, but it’s art, and it’s beautiful, and I do something good for people, and sometimes I help them in ways other people don’t like. I understand Octavia’s choice, and I’ve probably just gotten lucky that I’ve never been in her, your, situation yet.” She looks at him now. “I really care about her. There aren’t many people who like this, and she’s got real talent. She’s my people. I keep my people safe.”

She sounds ridiculous, she thinks. She honestly can’t articulate her protective instincts for Octavia, but she has a creeping feeling along her spine, and it makes her uneasy, and she’s been on the fringe of society long enough to know that she needs to trust that instinct. If the cranky brother is along for the ride, well. At least she gets to look at him.

Bellamy has been looking at her for a while now, assessing. Abruptly, he says, “O told me you don’t have a soulmark.” 

Clarke flushes. It’s not something she shares lightly, and she blurted it out to Octavia in a moment of self-defense, but still. “She’s right. I don’t.”

Bellamy nods. “You probably know that I don’t either,” he says, and Clarke nods. She meets his eyes for the first time in several minutes, and there’s calculation there, but not distrust. She holds his gaze until he nods again.

“I don’t really know what it is you’re into that you think this whole situation is weird, but frankly, that woman made my skin crawl, so I guess I’m going to trust you on this. Where should I meet you? I get off work in three hours.”

“Just come by the shop,” Clarke says. “Octavia and I, and maybe Raven, will all be there. I’ll get your stuff moved by tonight.”

Bellamy looks her over, shakes his head. “You seem like a force of nature, princess. I think I’m glad you’re on our side.” He gets up, waits for her to do the same. He holds the door for her on the way out, says “See you later,” and salutes her when she looks back. 

The nickname rankles her the whole way back to Neverland, and she can’t put her finger on why, but she shoves it to the back of her mind as she calls Miller and asks for a favor.

\-- 

Things fall into a pattern after that. Clarke initially tried to take the couch, but Bellamy firmly assured her that no, she would continue to sleep in her own bed, Octavia would take the spare room, and he would sleep on the couch. He’s a heavy sleeper, she’s found, but he wakes up early, and the perks of living with a barista include the near constant stream of coffee. She’s not sure it’s helping her anxiety over the inspector situation, but it slowly fades to the back of her mind as the weeks go by.

It’s hedging toward summer, and Clarke is moving more and more to the sleeveless portion of her wardrobe, and her tattoos are regularly on display now. The first time she’s in a tank top around Bellamy, she can feel the heat of his gaze burning her skin as he catalogues her tattoos. Normally she’d feel defensive, but when she turns to look at him, his eyes are burning with a different light, different than the disgust she’s seen before. This is a lot more like desire, and it makes heat flash along her skin.

Clarke has left the candles lit in the shop window at night, warding off her less reputable customers. She’s not taking any chances until she’s sure it’s safe again, but she’s also fighting to keep her guilt at bay, worried about the people who need her. Still, she’s got other people to protect, and she feels fiercely defensive of her home right now. She knows that Monroe and Miller are both keeping their eyes out for any unusual behavior in the neighborhood, but slowly, everyone is letting down their guard again.

It’s after a day of serious tattooing, where Bellamy had to come to the shop with her coffee to keep her afloat, that she walks home with Bellamy and Octavia to see two shapes huddled on their porch. She’s instantly on her guard, shoving Octavia behind her, and getting her phone out to call Miller when one of them stands up, unfolding to reveal the wavy hair that Clarke immediately recognizes as Anya’s. The rest of her, though, is almost completely indistinguishable from the stunning woman she used to know, and she doesn’t recognize the man next to her, who is equally bruised and bloody.

Bellamy is now out in front of Clarke, his entire body tense when she reaches a hand out to soothe him, saying “She’s the woman I apprenticed under, it’s okay.”

She hustles Bellamy and Octavia up the front steps and shoos everyone into her house before her neighbors (already well familiarized, these days, with her vagaries) can notice what’s going on. She doesn’t know how long Anya and the man have been waiting, but she hopes it hasn’t drawn her neighbors’ attention (though she thinks that Miller would have called her to tell her about vagrants on her porch – still).

When she gets everyone inside, she immediately goes to the bathroom to start digging around for the first aid kit, and comes back to see Anya and Bellamy warily eyeing each other, while the man is collapsed in a kitchen chair, and Octavia is getting him water.

Clarke starts for Anya first, but the other woman shakes her head. “Lincoln is worse off,” she says, nodding at the man.

Clarke nods, moves towards him. Over her shoulder, she throws out, “Anya, this is Bellamy and Octavia. Octavia’s working with me, and they both live here.” She can practically hear Anya raising her eyebrow at the entire sentence probably torn between skepticism of ‘working together’ and ‘living together’, but Clarke’s too busy to turn around and appreciate her mentor’s disbelief. Instead, she moves towards Lincoln, asks, “What’s the worst?”

Lincoln pulls up his shirt wordlessly, allowing Clarke to see where he’s clearly been repeatedly kicked in the chest. Clarke hisses, goes for her antibiotic wipes, and gets to work. Lincoln is quiet, unflinching in the face of what Clarke can imagine is quite a bit of discomfort. She regards him as she cleans him up, notes the tattoo on the side of his neck, curling out from under his shirt. It’s only when she gets to his other side that she hisses again, this time in surprise, and recoils.

He and Octavia have matching soulmarks. Clarke backs up, trying not to let her surprise, her dismay show, but the others catch on, and Octavia is the first one to ask her what’s wrong. Clarke can only shake her head, tries to go back to work, but Octavia’s eyes find the side of Lincoln’s neck, and now she’s the one that’s recoiling, stalking out of the room as Bellamy calls after her.

Clarke meets Lincoln’s gaze, and she wants to apologize, knows that her reaction not only made the situation worse, but is highly unusual. He meets her gaze with his own untroubled expression, and she shrugs, goes back to work.

\--

By the time Clarke has finished patching up both Lincoln and Anya, and has started to get an idea of what exactly happened that brought them here, Bellamy has retrieved Octavia and they’re both sitting around, sipping at tea while Clarke finishes.

Octavia’s gaze keeps skipping back to the mark on Lincoln’s neck, then back again, as if she can’t decide if she’s fascinated or horrified. A frown mars her face, and Clarke can tell that Bellamy is uncomfortable, although she’s not sure if it’s because his sister’s soulmate is sitting across from him, or if it’s because Octavia herself is behaving so strangely at the entire situation.

Still, nobody’s being impolite, exactly, and when Clarke finishes cleaning and stitching the last wound on Anya’s face and sits back with a sigh, Bellamy glares at her hands, waits until she washes them before thrusting a mug of tea into her hands. It’s her usual sage tea, and her eyes skip to Bellamy’s, realizing that he’s picked her favorite, and it occurs to her how well-integrated he is to her life, despite his relatively short presence.

She takes a sip and savors the trickle of warmth down her throat before Bellamy clears his throat. She looks up at him, then over at Anya and Lincoln, and realizes that, aside from her shotgun introduction, she hasn’t properly introduced anyone. “Sorry,” she says, feeling the blush on her face. She’s tired, okay, and it’s been a long couple of months, and – “Bellamy and Octavia are staying with me, as I said. This is Anya. I apprenticed with her. And that’s – Lincoln.” She pauses over his name, and it’s not just because the situation is awkward. She also only just met him, but she trusts Anya, knows she wouldn’t have come to her unless the situation is desperate.

“They had some trouble in their last place, too. So they might be here a while.” She glances over at Octavia, sees her frown deepen, and she’s up before Clarke can say anything else, walking to the bathroom and slamming the door. Clarke sighs, looks at Bellamy. He’s glancing after O, but when he turns back to face Clarke, he just shrugs.

“Do you want to elaborate on ‘trouble’?” He asks, crossing his arms. He looks ready for a fight, Clarke realizes, and honestly, she just wants to bang her head against a wall. She doesn’t want to deal with this right now.

Fortunately, Anya’s the one to answer. “The inspectors came calling and decided they didn’t like what they saw of our shop.”

Bellamy looks at her, waits. Anya stares back, and Clarke thinks this could turn into an all-out staring contest until Anya elaborates. “We tattoo, like Clarke does. But we’ve been having some trouble out where we are; it’s a small town, as Clarke can tell you, and tattooing is even less liked there than it is here, and while we haven’t done anything wrong, someone must have reported us. The inspectors didn’t deal with us lawfully.”

Bellamy nods. “When you say, ‘like Clarke does’ – " 

“We don’t do illegal tattoos. Full stop.” Anya says, looking at Clarke. Clarke doesn’t even have the level of awareness at this point to feel any embarrassment, but Anya drilled into the importance of discretion and rule-following in their profession. Clarke just hasn’t always followed her guidance, and Anya’s astute enough to know. 

She thinks she catches a smirk on Bellamy’s face as he hears this, but she’s not sure if she really sees it through the haze of her exhaustion. She’s thinking that she needs to find places for more people to stay, needs to talk the situation through with Anya in more detail, but right now, she’s realizing she can barely hold her tea.

She reaches over to the counter to put her tea down, and it’s as she stumbles that she realizes Bellamy is at her back, supporting her, and she’s grateful for his steadiness at this moment, because she’s overextended herself, and she is more than ready for bed. She looks over her shoulder at him, sees the concern in his eyes, and offers him a smile. “Just been a long day, that’s all,” she whispers. He nods, relaxes his grip on her waist, and she’s a little bit sad at the loss. Still, she looks over his shoulder to see Anya staring at her with an assessing gaze, and she says, “I’m going to get the guest bedroom ready, and you can stay there for now.” She turns back to Bellamy. “Octavia can stay in my room with me.”

He nods, but says, “She can stay on the couch, if you want your bed to yourself?”

The possibilities lurch through Clarke, and it’s a little too much for her to handle. She wants this man, but it’s only now, in her exhaustion, that she’s realizing how deeply, and now that he’s made this implication – but no, he’s not aware of it, there’s no trace of a blush across his face, of shyness in the way he looks at her. Still, she’s cognizant enough to tease him about it, though just barely. “And where would you sleep?” she asks, grinning slightly.

Now the implication seems to hit him, and his grip tightens for just a minute, before his hands fall away entirely. “I can sleep on the floor,” he offers, shrugging. There’s a trace of pink across his ears, and Clarke thinks it’s very charming. She – does not know how to offer to have him sleep in with her, not now, but it is what she wants.

Still, she thinks about how flustered Octavia is, thinks she needs her privacy while she can get it. “No, it’s okay. Octavia needs some space, I think.” Bellamy nods, gives her a grateful look.

She pats him on the arm distractedly as she passes him to take clean linens out, and when he follows her and helps her make the bed, she is grateful for his help.

Lincoln and Anya settle in, and Clarke gets Octavia to come out of the bathroom, explaining the arrangements to her. Octavia nods, gives Clarke a one-armed hug before slipping into her room. 

By the time Clarke gets there, hoping to talk to Octavia about what’s going on, the younger woman is passed out, spread out across the bed, and snoring. Clarke shakes her head, weasels a pillow out from under O’s grip, and wanders back out to the couch. Bellamy is sitting on the side of it reading in his boxers and a t-shirt, and the flash of desire goes through Clarke’s body all over again. Still, she’s too tired to do anything more than sit next to him.

When the mattress sinks next to him, Bellamy looks up, see Clarke with her hair bound up and her makeup gone, clutching a pillow like a child. She offers a smile to him, and he asks, “O hogging the bed?”

Clarke laughs quietly, nods.

Bellamy gives her a once-over. She worked a full day in the shop, and then came home to chaos in her house. It’s some time early in the morning, and she’s clearly exhausted, for all that she’s bearing the weight of the day quite regally, her posture still excellent and her face composed. She’s a beautiful woman, he thinks, not for the first time. He wasn’t sure if he’d like her at first, but she’s an easy person to care for, to love. He’s not sure when he started to feel such deep affection for her, especially since they’ve known each other for such a short time, but – still, he cares quite a bit about her.

“You can have the couch, if you want,” he offers. Clarke looks at him, offers her palm outstretched to him. He hesitates, his hand resting in the air above hers, before he links their fingers. She tugs at him, pulling him to lie down with her, and when they’re facing each other, he reaches out, smooths her hair away from her face. He gently untangles her hair like he did for Octavia when she was little, and by the time her hair is smooth, she has fallen asleep, her hand still gripping his.

\--

The first thing Octavia sees when she wakes up is her brother and her boss curled up together, and in spite of all of her feelings about everything that happened the day before, all the things that have been revealed, she can’t help the smile that comes to her face. Her boss, she’s come to realize, is a very composed force of nature, a storm wrapped up in a woman, and Octavia has rarely respected anyone like she does Clarke. Still, it’s nice to see her a little softer, curled against her brother like he’s her anchor in the world.

Octavia creeps through the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as possible, but she can hear shifting from the living room, and she winces. She takes her coffee out onto the porch, watching the mist curl in from the sound, and thinks. She is disrupted by someone plunking down in the chair next to her, and she looks over to see Clarke in an overlarge sweater, cuffs rolled up and coffee in hand peering at her over the rim of her mug.

Octavia sighs. She expected an inquisition, but she was sort of hoping to make it through her first cup of coffee before having to face it. Still, she thinks it might be easier with Clarke than with Bellamy, so she’ll take it.

Clarke gives her something like five minutes of quiet before starting in. She’s never failed to be direct in Octavia’s experience, and she’s not sure why she was expecting anything else. “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to start asking pointed questions?” She asks.

Octavia huffs out a laugh. “It – I guess it just took me by surprise? Growing up with Bell, I just sort of got used to the idea of not having a soulmate.” She looks over at Clarke, whose eyebrows are raised in skepticism. “I’m sure for you that seems really silly.”

Octavia glances back down, picks at a thread in her shorts. “I figured I had one, of course. But because Bell didn’t have one, I just sort of thought that I wouldn’t find them. Everyone else seems to find theirs so easily, but I figured it shouldn’t really be so easy, and so I just assumed I wouldn’t find mine. And I got kind of used to the idea of choosing my own, too, the way you and Bell get to. I mean, you do a lot of work to make sure that people get to choose their own; we do a lot of work to make sure that soulmarks aren’t the only thing people are known for, aren’t the only thing about them that matters, and I really wanted that to be true for me, too.” She’s surprised to find that she’s tearing up a little, and Clarke reaches out to squeeze her hand, loosely holding on.

“I just – I really liked the idea of choice,” she says, her voice wavering. “It’s silly, I’m sure. I bet it would be nice for you, to know.” She looks up at Clarke, who’s looking at her consideringly.

“I – I’m not sure I really thought about it that way,” Clarke says thoughtfully. “I just always felt like a freak for not having one, and it was nice, in a way, because I never felt tied down, or obligated to anyone. But I never thought about it in the sense of having a choice that others didn’t, although I certainly try to give people more choice.”

Octavia glances back down. “I don’t even know him. Every person I’ve ever encountered who found their soulmate talked about how easy it was to get to know them, but so many of them have known them since they were kids, and I’ve never even seen this man, wouldn’t have known him if we hadn’t moved here, if the soulmarks and everything we do weren’t sort of fucked up to begin with." 

Clarke nods. “Well, here’s what I think. You can get to know him. You can still decide if your soulmark means you’re meant to be or not. We’re told that it means everything, but you can make that choice. It doesn’t make you predestined. Look at Raven and Finn – maybe they’re predestined, but Finn’s a dick, so – “ she waits for Octavia to stop laughing. “All I’m saying is, we might be brought up to think that it’s the end all, be all, but – you’re a tattoo artist. You can’t believe that, or you wouldn’t do what you do. You can decide if you think it matters. You can choose him to be your soulmate in spite of the soulmark, not because of it, if that’s the way this goes.” She squeezes Octavia’s hand again. “You always have a choice.”

Octavia nods, swipes at her eyes. She’s not even crying, really, but it’s a lot to take in, and she’s not even sure how to get to know Lincoln, not really. She thinks she wants to, but she dislikes feeling like she wants to get to know him because they match in some superficial way. Still, there’s a tug there for her, and she’s disinclined to ignore it. She also doesn’t want to dwell on it right now, so – “So you and Bell, hm?” She teases. She takes great pleasure in watching Clarke blush, laughs at her.

“You were hogging the bed,” Clarke answers primly.

Octavia laughs. “I don’t doubt that. But you were very cozy this morning.” Clarke doesn’t say anything, just sips at her coffee. “Do you think – do you think you still have a soulmate, even without the mark?” She asks.

Clarke looks out at the fog for a long while before answering. “I – I’ve never been sure,” she says. “And I’m torn between believing that it’s someone like Bellamy, who doesn’t have one, and that we’re soulmates for that reason, and believing that it’s someone who has a soulmark, but who chooses me anyway. That seems more romantic, somehow, but – I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe about them. I think it’s convenient for people to assume that they’re meaningful, and it certainly seems like more than mere chance that people just happen to match, but – are they compatible because they believe they need to be? Or are they actually compatible? I like tattooing because I get to help people decide, I help give them choices about who they are. And I think that’s important.”

She looks at Octavia, shrugs. “I was always abnormal, growing up without one. I wanted one, wanted the ease of fitting in, but it usually was about conforming to what people expected, to what my parents wanted. And as I’ve grown up, I just – I want a person, in whatever form that takes, but I want a soulmate of some kind. I just want it for real reasons, not reasons that our society holds to be true.”

Octavia nods, lets it go. For a long while, the two women sit in silence, watching the fog around them, wrapped up in their own thoughts.

\-- 

It’s only an hour or two later that Bellamy walks out onto the porch holding a bowl of oatmeal in one hand and Clarke’s ringing phone in the other. “It’s Raven,” he says, before thrusting both into her outstretched hands.

She’s pleasantly surprised that he’s made her breakfast, but she’s learned that he’s a bit of a mother hen, and after her clear exhaustion the night before, she’s not sure she should be surprised that he’s trying to feed her. Her phone starts buzzing again, distracting her from her thoughts, and she answers to hear Raven talking at her quickly.

“You know we were supposed to open an hour ago, right?” she says.

Clarke takes the phone away from her ear, looks at the time. “Shit,” she says. “Sorry, we had a bit of an unexpected situation last night, and I need to find places to stay for some people.”

She can practically hear Raven raising her eyebrows over the phone. “You need to do what now?” she asks.

Clarke sighs. “Can you put a sign up saying we’re closed for the day and cancel any appointments we have? It might be best if you just come over when you’re done.”

Raven is silent for a moment on the end of the line. “Sure,” she says, finally. “What do you want the sign to say?” 

“I don’t know, something about a family emergency, whatever. Our clients more or less know the drill.”

Raven hums down the line, says “Okay. I’ll be there in twenty,” and hangs up.

When Clarke looks back up, Bellamy has joined them on the porch, is eating his own oatmeal and chatting quietly with Octavia. He glances up at her when she sets down her phone, quirks a smile at her. She is filled with warmth at the sight, and she can’t help the smile that comes to her face in response.

Octavia looks over at Clarke, smirks at the look on her face. Clarke starts to blush, says “I’m going to run down to Monty and Miller’s, see if they have some extra space for Lincoln or Anya.”

She has to talk to a couple of folks on her block, but eventually she finds space for both of them. Anya ends up with her somewhat elusive neighbor; Clarke hasn’t interacted with Echo very much, but she’s tattooed and has a giant dog, and in spite of her more intimidating demeanor, Clarke trusts her. Thinks Anya might be even more safe with her because of her persona (thinks they might need all the help they can get).

Monty and Miller offer to take in Lincoln, and Clarke can’t disguise her relief in knowing that she’s going back to her two regular houseguests, and that Octavia will be less on edge, even if her soulmate is only several feet away. It’s better than in the house, she thinks.

After everyone gets situated again, Clarke wanders back to her house, finds Raven chatting with Octavia and Bellamy, and when Clarke flops into a chair, her exhaustion working its way into a headache, she once again finds her hands full, this time with a mug of tea. She looks up through her hair to see Bellamy looking at her with undisguised concern, and she really wants to laugh at his concern, but it’s – well, it’s unusual for her to be able to rely on someone like this, and it’s a nice feeling.

Raven is most definitely smirking at them, though, and Clarke can feel the blush rising to her face _again_. She glares at Raven until she relents, then takes a sip of her tea.

“So, what exactly happened that you ended up taking in and patching up two other people?” Raven asks.

Octavia and Bellamy turn to Clarke, and she realizes that they didn’t hear the full story yesterday, either. “Anya is my mentor, she’s been working a couple hundred miles east of here for years; Lincoln is her most recent apprentice, and they’ve both been working in this pretty conservative community, but they strictly do legal work, so they assumed everything was fine. Apparently someone reported them to the inspectors anyway, though, and rather than having to fill out reports like usual, the inspectors just went to town on Anya, started throwing punches when she started arguing with them, and Lincoln jumped in, but apparently the inspectors overpowered them. Anya’s surprised they weren’t just arrested, but they haven’t been doing anything _wrong_ , so they couldn’t do that. They just – did everything they could to run them out of town, instead.”

Clarke shakes her head. “I don’t know what’s going on all of a sudden, but it seems like the inspectors are cracking down more than usual, and I haven’t heard anything about the chancellor making policy changes, but it seems like something must have changed, because this is now the second serious incident that’s landed on this doorstep in six months, and that seems _weird_.” Her gaze slides over Octavia; she certainly doesn’t mind having them here, but Octavia’s situation is different, and Clarke isn’t really sure if the two incidents are related, but it certainly seems markedly coincidental.

Bellamy’s frowning, and when Clarke looks at him, he says “It’s just – tattooing has always been disliked. But it’s also becoming more popular, and the government might not like that it’s an act of rebellion, of questioning the status quo.”

Clarke snorts. “The status quo for whom? Not for us.” She knows she’s being petulant and naïve, but she’s annoyed now, knows her mother is probably tied up in this, knows Wells’ dad is tied up in this, in maintaining the idea of soulmarks as important, defining. She’s been tired of it for years, and now that the norms are encroaching on the little world she’s made for herself, she finds that she’s extremely irritated.

“I’m not even sure what we’d do about it, to be honest,” Raven says, looking between Clarke and Bellamy. “So soulmarks are politically, socially important, and people don’t like that we’re rocking that boat. What would we even do, besides keep doing what we already do?" 

Clarke thinks about that for a minute. To an outsider, this probably seems like a trivial concern, but it’s the flesh and bone of her life, and she can’t think of it that way. Can’t think of it as inconsequential when her friends are getting hurt over it. “I guess we keep doing exactly what we’re doing,” she says. “I’m not sure if we need to be more careful, but I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. The only way to change minds is to keep doing what we’re doing, and I want to do that anyway. But the only way to make the world safe for people is to give them more choice.”

She’s hoping it’s enough to keep them all safe, in all their various guises.

\--

They bring Lincoln on to tattoo with them after several weeks. She loved being an all-lady tattoo shop, but he needs the work, and he’s clearly talented. Anya goes off to work with another artist in a smaller shop, and it’s easy enough for everyone.

It’s not immediately easy at Neverland. For the first few weeks, Octavia prowls around, avoiding Lincoln and working odd hours. He seems content to give her the space she clearly wants, and Clarke and Raven schedule with him to find that he’s a quiet person, easy to work with. He and Clarke share an affinity for floral and faunal tattoos, which makes sense because of their shared affiliation with Anya. Still, there’s plenty of demand to go around, and it’s easy enough to keep working as they’ve been doing.

Shortly after they hire Lincoln, he moves out from living with Monty and Miller, finds his own place. Clarke doesn’t know where it is, hopes it’s in a safe part of town. Lincoln seems quiet enough to be isolated, and she thinks that, while he’s a formidable person in his own right, he needs a community like she has to buffer him, protect him from the rest of society. Still, she doesn’t push it, just like she doesn’t push Octavia.

Octavia starts taking shifts with Lincoln eventually, and the first time Clarke walks in to find them working side by side, Octavia looks up her with a shy smile that Clarke is happy to return. She doesn’t know what happened between the two of them, exactly, and it’s clear that it’s nascent, whatever it is, but there’s a shift in the way they work around each other, orbiting each other closely instead of avoiding each other, and it’s a start.

\--

It seems like things are going back to normal, and then Abby Griffin shows up at Neverland, and Clarke thinks she’s going to have a heart attack when she sees the familiar flash of hair outside her shop. She actually debates hiding in the back, avoiding her mother entirely. Instead, she calmly calls Bellamy, asks him to come to the shop, and greets her mother quietly.

Bellamy must have run from work, Clarke thinks, because his hair is disheveled and he’s looking Clarke over frantically, and she thinks guiltily that she could have give him more context. Still, he’s here, and that’s what she really needed. She grabs his hand, squeezes, says, “This is Abby, my mom.” Bellamy looks from her to her mother with surprise, his face closing off. He’s heard a little bit about Clarke’s childhood when they’ve been talking late at night, and he’s clearly formed an opinion of Abby that is less than favorable.

Still, he sticks out his other hand stiffly, says “Bellamy Blake,” by way of introduction, and looks back to Clarke.

Clarke looks to her mother, who says, “Clarke, honey, I think we need to talk.”

Clarke fights the urge to roll her eyes, ushers Bellamy and Abby to the back room. She’s tried to tidy it up since she interviewed Octavia here, but it’s overrun with sketchbooks again, and she doesn’t feel even a little bit apologetic as her mother looks it over. She then casts her glance over Clarke’s body, taking in the tattoos snaking from her hands to her biceps, the stars across her daughter’s chest, and Clarke thinks it’s impressive that she doesn’t sniff in disdain.

“I – it’s clear you’ve really built something here,” Abby starts, stiff and stilted. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m impressed.” Clarke is torn now, between rolling her eyes, and feeling some measure of satisfaction – her mother was never free with praise, and this is practically like being handed a trophy, especially considering the circumstances under which she’s being complimented.

“Thank you,” Clarke says, equally formally. “May I ask what brought you here?”

Abby sighs, and Clarke can tell she’s controlling the urge to scrub her hands over her face, an urge long-controlled from years of scrubbing in, working in the caverns of people. “I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, but I’m hearing some alarming things about tattoo artists all over the country. Disappearing, showing up dead, showing up battered at hospitals. I – I really don’t want that to end up happening to you,” she says, looking small and a little desperate.

Clarke chokes on a laugh. “That seems a little rich, considering you think this is abominable.”

A look of hurt flashes across Abby’s face. “Clarke, this is never what I envisioned for you, isn’t what I wanted for you, but you _like it_. It’s clear that you’re good at it, that it makes you happy, and you’re still my daughter, and I want you to be safe.”

“Well, up until this point, you’ve made it clear that you don’t think the people I care about are worth very much, so you can understand how I might find that a little surprising,” Clarke shoots back. Bellamy squeezes her hand, and when she looks over at him, he maps soothing circles onto the back of her hand. Her mother’s eyes snap to their joined hands, and Clarke notes her surprise with great pleasure.

“The chancellor has made it his mission to make sure that soulmarks retain their sanctity, Clarke, and I thought that was important, especially when I was with your father.” Clarke snorts, remembers the text she got when her father died. “Now – well, I’m with someone else,” Abby says, looking away. “I know it’s not the same as what you’ve gone through, what I’ve _put_ you through, but I would like to think that I’m growing as a person, and I hope that I can convince you that I don’t agree with the chancellor’s position. We should have choices. What you’re doing helps with that, and I admire that.”

Clarke is – well, Clarke is stunned. Not that she doesn’t think that humans can change – she knows they can. She just didn’t think her mother was among those people. And it sets her on edge. “I don’t know what to say, Mom. To be honest, I’ve seen enough in the past couple of months to be a little skeptical of what you’re saying. I’m a little worried this is some sort of ploy, and I don’t – I want to trust you, but I don’t know if I can afford to.”

Abby nods. “I understand. I just wanted to let you know – if you need anything, absolutely anything at all, you can reach out to me. I’ve moved, and Marcus and I are just a couple of miles away. I want to help if you end up needing it.” She looks between Clarke and Bellamy, nods. “I’ll go, let you think about it.” She offers a tentative smile before getting up and walking out.

Clarke honestly wants to collapse against Bellamy and indulge in some hysterical laughter, but even that seems inappropriate, so all she does is bury her face in Bellamy’s chest, tries to hold in the laughter that’s threatening to escape. They still haven’t done anything more intimate than share a bed, but she’s used to his body now, at least a little, finds it comforting. “Well that was surreal,” she finally manages.

Bellamy brings his arms up and around her, pets down her spine, hums. “What do you think about what she said?” he asks 

Clarke shakes her head, finally looks up. “I don’t know. She’s my mom, you know? I want to believe her, I want to _trust_ her. But she’s had ties to the chancellor for a pretty long time, and I – just don’t know. We’re all pretty vulnerable right now, and I don’t want to make a mistake.” She looks up at him, says, “Can we go home? I don’t want to dwell on this here.”

He nods, waits for her to pack up so she can work from home, walks out with his hand on the small of her back, his touch a constant comfort to her.

\--

They fall into a routine for a few weeks; Clarke no longer needs to share the couch with Bellamy, but after her mother comes to visit, she leads him to her room and curls up with him, wrapped up in the warmth he offers. His things slowly migrate into her room until one day, she picks up everything he has left in the living room, clears out space in her closet and dresser, and drops everything in. She puts his Latin books next to her art books on the shelf and crosses her arms over her chest when he looks surprised after a shift at the coffee shop. He gently tugs them away from her body before pressing his lips against hers, dry and wonderful. She’s smiling when she tucks her head under his chin and sighs.

Octavia stays with them in the guest bedroom, but Clarke senses that the initial truce between her and Lincoln is growing into something more, and she’s waiting for the day that Octavia starts to move out.

They’ve almost settled again when Clarke starts to think that she’s being followed home from work, to and from the coffee shop. She mentions it to Raven first, because she doesn’t want to worry Octavia and Bellamy, who have only just settled back in after the chaos of the past few weeks, after their own abrupt move across the country, but she’s consistently seeing cars follow her, only to stop outside the coffee shop, or to wait outside Neverland briefly before pealing off.

Raven frowns as Clarke walks her through what she’s observed, and then immediately demands that they go out for coffee to test it out. Octavia and Lincoln are sitting with their heads pressed together over a collaboration they’re working on, and they wave vaguely in their direction as Clarke wraps her scarf around her face and they walk out into the damp. Clarke immediately identifies a car that, if it’s not the one that followed her from the coffee shop, is certainly remarkably _similar_ to the one that followed her from the coffee shop, and she mutters about it in Raven’s direction without moving her head. Raven’s eyes narrow, and she links their arms together before starting to move them more quickly.

“I didn’t hear an engine turn over, and I don’t think we’re going to have to run, but if we do, we _do not_ get separated, okay?” Raven hisses at her. Clarke manages the smallest nod she can, the beginnings of fear thrumming through her veins.

She desperately wanted to believe that this was over, that they could go back to normal, and it’s a grim realization that it not only hasn’t gone away, the storm that’s been following the people that she considers family is now sitting on her doorstep and shadowing her.

Raven marches them over to the mechanic’s shop, and she’s right – the car follows them, but never close enough for them to feel physically in danger; just enough to make them feel intimidated.

When they get to the garage, Wick greets Raven with a peck to the lips, and Clarke has to tuck her face into her scarf to hide her grin. Raven and Wick talk briefly, and Clarke can guess by the way Raven is gesturing that she’s explaining the situation to Wick, who’s listening with his head bowed, a look of consternation on his face. When he looks up, Raven has a triumphant look on her face, but Wick just looks concerned. He finally nods, presses something into her outstretched hands.

“We’re going to track them,” Raven announces when she walks back over to Clarke. “We’re going to distract them, and plant these on their cars so we can see what else they’re doing, start to figure this out.”

Wick is shaking his head a little, and Clarke can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking, if it’s similar to the concern and doubt that she’s feeling, and so she asks, “What is it, Wick?" 

Raven looks impatient, but Wick looks slowly from her to Clarke, says, “With what you’re dealing with, everything I’ve heard in the last couple of months, things I’m hearing in general – I’m not sure even this is safe.”

Raven scoffs. “We’re not confronting them. We’re just trying to get more information, which can only help us.”

Clarke sighs. She’s inclined to believe in Raven, but she can’t help but wonder if Wick is right, if even this is too much action that will ultimately endanger them, rather than helping them. Still – they need to know what’s going on. She looks over at Wick, then at Raven, and she nods.

\--

Planting the trackers seems almost frighteningly easy, and it’s that gut feeling that Clarke should have listened to, because while they’ve been able to keep an eye out on more than one batch of watchers, they also aren’t getting very much information, and Clarke feels like she’s being followed more closely, more aggressively than before. She’s finally mentioned it to Bellamy, who has started insisting on walking with her from home to work and back, and who brings them coffee rather than having them come get it.

It’s starting to feel like house arrest, and it’s grating on Clarke’s nerves. 

It’s when she and Bellamy are walking home from work, Bellamy having come to pick Clarke up, their arms intertwined and her head resting against his shoulder, being jostled by their gait that it happens.

Clarke hasn’t been sleeping well, and she’s not particularly alert, but she hears the squeal of tires, starts to jolt herself fully to wakefulness when a car peals out in front of them and blocks their way. Bellamy tightens his grip on Clarke, turns her around, only to see that they’re boxed in by another car, and it’s not late at night, but it’s dusk, and few people are out, and if Clarke could feel the thrum of fear in her veins when she and Raven were followed, it’s nothing compared to the pace of fear she’s feeling in her body now, every nerve on high alert.

She grips Bellamy’s hand, stands next to him and waits.

When the car door opens, the person who steps out seems remarkably benign. He’s an older gentleman, well-dressed, with cropped white hair. He looks dignified, polite even, but Clarke looks around her, and knows that if they aren’t in danger of being physically hurt, this is almost undoubtedly going to be a very unpleasant encounter.

“What do you want?” Clarke asks, putting venom in her voice.

“Clarke Griffin, I assume?” the man asks.

If Clarke weren’t holding onto Bellamy’s hand like it’s her lifeline, she’d be tempted to cross her arms over her chest. As it is, she shifts, stands as defensively as she thinks she can. “You wouldn’t have boxed us in if you didn’t know who I was. Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’d just like to talk, if you’d like to get in,” he says, gesturing to his car. “I’m sure you’re cold, and I’m happy to give you a ride home.” 

Clarke can hear Bellamy scoff under his breath, imagines him shaking his head. She keeps her eyes trained on the man in front of her. He’s oddly serpentine, and she’s afraid if she takes her eyes off him, he’s going to strike at one of them. “Unless you think I’m a fool, you know I’m not going to do that. You want to talk? Go for it." 

The man sighs. “I had so hoped to do this in private.” He shakes his head, clasps his hands in front of him. He’s the very picture of a disappointed grandfather, Clarke thinks. Doesn’t trust that impression for a second. “Very well. My name is Dante Wallace, and I would like to talk to you about your…business. It’s rather disrupting the course of things, you know. Interrupting people’s lives. I’m afraid that people are losing their soulmates as a result, and you can imagine how distressing that is to people.” He pauses, looking over at her. “I would like to ask you to stop. I’m willing to buy out your business, hire you on as a contract artist. You’ll be paid more than you’re earning now, I’m sure, and your job security will be much greater.”

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s hand, lets it go and walks right up to Dante Wallace until her face is inches from his. “Now you listen to me. I’m never stopping what I’m doing. You can stalk me, you can threaten me, blackmail me, whatever, but you will take the tools of my trade from my cold, dead hands. People deserve a choice in this world. I’m going to make sure they have it, or die trying. I’d rather not die trying, but I will go down fighting. Do you understand me?” She waits, her breath puffing out in clouds in the air.

Dante offers her a polite smile. “Well, I had rather hoped for another answer, of course, but there you have it. Don’t worry, Ms. Griffin, I’ll leave you to your evening. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.” He steps back, turns around, and gets back in his car. 

Clarke watches both cars drive away, fights not to flinch when Bellamy lays his hand on her shoulder.

“What was that?” he asks, looking at her with concern.

She looks at him, meets his eyes, feels the fight leave her. She’s suddenly exhausted, wants nothing more than to curl up in her bed with him wrapped around her and sleep for the next year. “I don’t know. But this just escalated, and I’m afraid that’s my fault.”

\--

Clarke is right, it is getting worse. They’re getting no data from the tracking devices, and Raven is increasingly frustrated by it. They’re all frustrated, to be honest; they’ve all been cooped up, moving from home to work and back again with very little deviation. It seems pointless to try and avoid their watchers at this point, and it almost seems like this is as much as it’s going to amount to, but.

Ten days after Clarke’s confrontation with Dante, their window shatters and smoke starts to fill the house. Clarke frantically wakes Bellamy, and they get out as fast as they can, only to realize they’re boxed in again. They spend the night on the roof, trying to stay as warm as possible in the cold fall air, and it’s only when they have to go to work that they go back to their house to find it’s been ransacked. Nothing is missing, but their things are all over the place, and Clarke feels like everything that matters is being violated.

“We need to leave,” she says grimly, looks over to see Bellamy in his sweater and boxers, just looking at everything. “Bell,” she says, trying to get his attention. He looks over at her, and she doesn’t even recognize the look in his eyes.

“Where are we going to go? They’ve – they’ve followed us all across the country,” he says, and finally she realizes – it’s desperation. She walks over to him, laces her fingers with his.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to pack what we need. I’m going to call Miller and Monty, and Harper and Monroe, to tell them we’re leaving and give them some information about the situation in case they’re also in danger. You’re going to call Octavia and Lincoln. I’ll call Raven and Wick. We’re all going to work as usual, and then we’re going to my mom’s.”

Bellamy looks at her, sees the steeliness in her gaze. This is a woman he loves, admires, but – he’s scared for her. “What if your mom is involved?”

“We don’t have any other options right now. We have to try. We have to hope.” She waits until he nods, nods back at him. “Okay. Let’s get started.” She kisses him before she turns away, and it starts chaste, but turns deeper, and she wants nothing more than to give in to the adrenaline thrumming through her body, but she pulls away, buries her face in his neck. If they’re getting out today, they need to get moving now.

She makes her calls, calls some of her clients to warn them and ask them to spread the word to be extra cautious.

They leave their house that morning, and she locks up Neverland that night, walks away. It’s the hardest thing she’s ever done.

\--

Clarke decides it’s necessary for her and Bellamy to show up first at her mother’s house. This is a leap of faith, and it’s because they’re all _desperate_ , but she feels like she should try and exercise some basic decency before she and five other people show up to hide out at her mother’s house.

It’s as she’s knocking on the door, one hand in Bellamy’s and the other holding her bag that she realizes she doesn’t know her mother’s new partner, and it throws her for a little when her godfather opens the door. “…Marcus?” she asks hesitantly.

His eyebrows are high on his forehead as he looks from Clarke to Bellamy, but – “Clarke. It’s, uh, lovely to see you! Were we expecting you?”

Clarke knows it’s only out of politeness, years and years of politics that is keeping Marcus Kane’s composure together, and she wants to smile, but bites it back. They need to get inside, and then they need to make sure this is as safe as she’s hoping it is for the others. “Not really, no. My mom and I spoke earlier, and I hate to just show up like this, but we, and some of our friends, are rather in desperate need of a place to stay, and. I’m really hoping this is it,” she says. She’s thought through what to say, and she’s not sure this is it, but. It starts with reaching out, she thinks, and she hopes she’s right.

Kane nods slowly, still looking between the two of them. “Well, you’d better come on in, then, and I’ll get Abby.” He pauses, looking directly at Bellamy. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced,” he says, holding out his hand.

“Bellamy Blake,” Bellamy says, letting go of Clarke and shaking his hand.

Kane nods, ushers them in. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

Clarke takes in the house she’s now in, so different from the one she grew up in. For all that it’s raining outside, there’s nice light streaming in the windows, and there are a few nice paintings up. It looks homey, lived in, but also posh. Being back inside is a good feeling, leaves her feeling less exposed, but she also feels like she’s trusting her life, Bellamy’s, everyone’s lives to chance, and she buries her face in Bellamy’s chest, muttering, “Are we doing the right thing?”

She hears his bag drop with a thunk, and his arms come around her as hers go around him. “I don’t know, but I do know we don’t have many options. O and I have tried running. Hiding might be our best option, even if it’s with risky people.”

She nods into his chest, tries to keep her tears at bay. She breathes him in, the smell of coffee and ink and books, tries to let it soothe her.

They separate when she hears two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. “Hi Mom,” she offers with a weak smile. “Sorry to surprise you and Marcus. We’re in a bit of trouble, and I’m hoping your olive branch extends to some other people.”

Abby walks over to her, brushes her hair out of her eyes, kisses her forehead. “I’m glad you’re here, honey. I’ve been hearing things.” She smiles tentatively at Clarke. “You’re all welcome. Are the others on their way?” 

Clarke nods. “I tried to get here first to prepare you. It’s Bellamy’s sister and her partner, and my friend Raven and hers. I don’t think there will be others, for now. It’s – I think it’s a particular attack on us, at this point.”

Abby nods. “I’m hoping you’re going to tell us a little more about this later, but for now, if you’ll help me, I can get a room ready for you and Bellamy, and Bellamy can help Marcus get some other things ready.”

The four of them share a look, and it seems like a breath before the storm as they get moving.

\--

Raven and Wick arrive next, and it’s clear that Raven is flustered. “The trackers don’t say we were followed, but I’m not sure I trust that. I feel like I kept seeing the same SUV,” she tells Clarke as soon as they’re inside. She looks around, sees Abby and Marcus. “Sorry, Raven Reyes. This is Kyle Wick. I work with Clarke.” She sticks out her hand, shakes with Abby and Marcus, who each introduce themselves.

“We haven’t really discussed what’s going on,” Clarke says. “We’re waiting until everyone’s here.” She doesn’t say it’s for strength in numbers, because she’s hoping that isn’t necessary, but she thinks it might not hurt, especially when Octavia, Bellamy, and Lincoln can all recall the encounters that led them here, on top of what they’ve all been experiencing more recently.

There’s a pounding on the door, and Clarke jumps. When she opens it, it’s to find Lincoln carrying Octavia, who’s bleeding from a gash in her leg. She can hear her mother gasp in the background, before leaving the room, hopefully to get the medical kit she has at home, Clarke thinks.

“What the fuck happened?” Bellamy growls, taking the bags from the porch, locking the door, and closing the blinds.

Lincoln shakes his head. “We were followed,” he says grimly. “They t-boned the car, and it was all I could do to get us here. I don’t think they know where we are, but we’re sitting ducks here if they know.”

Abby comes back and starts tending to Octavia. It seems like it’s just a bad cut, and she calls out to Clarke to wash her hands and come help; when Clarke goes to her side, she sees that it’s deep, needs stitches, but missed the femoral artery, and she breathes a sigh of relief. They scrub the wound and stitch it up with help from a local anesthetic. When they’re done, Clarke tells Lincoln and Bellamy that she’ll be fine, she just needs to rest.

Abby leaves to wash her hands, but when she comes back, she’s got a determined look on her face. “I think it’s time to tell me what brought you all to my doorstep, and what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in.”

Clarke bristles at her tone. “To be totally, honest, we’re still not sure, but every single one of us has been followed, harassed, intimidated, or abused in the last six months, and Bellamy and I had a very interesting interaction with a man named Dante Wallace over my refusal to stop tattooing.” She glares at her mother. “I don’t suppose you recognize that name, by any chance, do you?” 

Abby’s mouth is pursed. “You know I do. He’s a significant player in the government, has had the chancellor’s ear for several years now. He’s conservative, very traditional. He believes that soulmarks are of the utmost importance in deciding a person’s fate, claims that this is the reason we’ve all managed to survive as long as we have, is by finding the people with whom we’re meant to have children and carry on.” She sighs, looks over at Kane. “Clarke, if he’s after you – he’s not going to stop until you stop what you’re doing.”

“Well, we closed up for the first time in two years today, so I guess I technically have stopped. But he hasn’t.” She crosses her arms over her chest, avoids making eye contact with anyone. “I don’t want to stop. What I do, what _we_ do is practically trivial, but I won’t have someone tell me, after all the work I’ve done, that I can’t continue what I’m doing.”

Abby looks at her, assessing. “Well, I’ve never had much luck telling you what to do, but these seem like extraordinary circumstances.” She sighs, looks over at Kane, who gives her a soft smile. “It sounds like it’s been a very long day for everyone. We’ll get dinner on, and start talking next steps in the morning."

\--

When Clarke finally goes up to bed, she’s practically dragging with exhaustion. She and Raven finishing sharing stories about what’s happened during the day, and then Octavia woke up and needed her bandage changed, and when everything was finally said and done, she wandered into the kitchen to find Marcus waiting for her. She offered him a tentative smile, and he returned it, but she thinks that they’re going to have to talk as well, separately from her mother, and she’s not dreading it, exactly, but she certainly doesn’t have the energy for it at the moment.

When she opens the door to the guest room, she finds Bellamy sitting upright in bed reading. For all that she often thinks that he’s a crotchety asshole some of the time, she’s pretty sure she’s in love with him, knows in this moment that she has a deep fondness for this man who has never once turned his back on her, in spite of some very trying circumstances. 

She smiles at him, starts to strip off her shirt, and wanders over to the bed to straddle him over the covers. “Hi,” she says, mouthing gently along his jaw. He hasn’t put his book down yet, is holding it behind her head, but when she nips lightly at the skin on his neck, he groans softly, closes his book and rests his hands on her hips, pulls her down fully to rock against him. When she makes contact with him, she hums, grinds down on him lightly before letting up. She rests her head in the juncture between his neck and his shoulder briefly, stilling her hips. “Thanks,” she says, looking him right in the eyes.

“For what?” he says, nuzzling into her neck.

She sighs against the feeling of his breath on her skin. “For – I don’t know. Being here. Putting up with this.”

He pulls away from her, and she whines at the loss of his skin on hers. “Clarke, if it weren’t for you, I’m not sure if O and I would still be alive. I don’t really know what’s going on, why this is happening to us, but I’m here for the long haul with you. If you want to take on the world, I’ll take it on with you.”

She smiles, but it’s wobbly. “I’ve just. I’ve never really had anyone who was willing to do that for me.” She brushes her lips against his. “I’m glad you’re with me,” she breathes, opening her mouth to his, letting his tongue sweep inside her mouth, along her lips.

His hands skate up her sides, raising goosebumps in their wake, and when he starts kneading at her breasts over her bra, she moans against him, grinds against his lap. He tugs the cups of her bra down, exposing her nipples, and he thumbs at them, and she’s kissing down his neck, humming at the contact, reaching her hand down to rub at his dick through his shorts, and he breathes out a huff of air against her neck, this choked laugh that she loves, has her smiling against his skin, and that’s when he tugs her down, grips her leg and turns them so she’s under him, smiling up at him, her hair a wild halo around her head.

He reaches behind her, encourages her to arch her back against his touch, licks along her breasts, nipping across the top of them as he unfastens her bra and tosses it aside. He kisses his way down her body until he’s tugging her skirt down, mouthing over the soft cotton of her underwear, and her hips are chasing after his mouth, looking for – “More,” she whispers, her fingers scritching at the top of his scalp. He grins against her, his eyes meeting hers, and she bumps his shoulder with her foot, trying to urge him on. He kisses around the edges of her underwear instead, bites down gently on the skin of her inner thigh. When she bumps him again, he bites down harder, sucks, and heat is coursing through her, but he’s not doing what she wants, paying attention to the need building in her body, reaching out from her clit to her fingertips, her toes.

She starts playing with her breasts to try and alleviate some her desire, and Bellamy groans against her, finally pulls her underwear aside, licks a stripe up her clit, and finally, finally, when he starts working her over with his fingers, his tongue lapping at her clit, working her slowly, so slowly, and then gathering speed, his fingers rubbing up against her until he crooks them, continues working her over until she comes, her fingers gripping his hair, toes clenched and back arched, and he keeps working her gently, pulling her down from her high. His chin is shiny when he looks at her smugly, and she wants to wipe the smirk off his face, lick the taste of herself from the inside of his mouth. She drags him back up to her, does exactly that.

They make out like that for a little while; she’s already come, feels warm and languorous on the bed, pressed between the comforting weight of his body and the softness of the bed, but she’s equally sure that he needs to get off, and she wouldn’t object to coming again, either. She reaches down between them, jacks him once, twice, before lining them up, rolling her hips up to take him until he’s pressed against her, and then she lays back, trying to get him to fuck her. He looks her over once, then reaches for her hands, holds them one handed above her head, and she bites her lip between her lower teeth, waits. He doesn’t disappoint, snapping his hips against hers so hard that she moves up the bed, keeps fucking into her like that, head buried against her neck, sucking a bruise there, another one on the top of her breast, and she can’t cry out, not in her mother’s house, but her back arches again, chases after the feel of him, stretching her out, sending sparks along every nerve ending in her body until it all snaps in a shower of stars, and she’s breathing out against him, clenching on him until he comes, emptying himself inside her.

She can feel him starting to soften inside her, knows she needs to move and clean up, but she’s so reassured by the weight of him on top of her, the presence of him in her life, and she gives herself an extra minute to revel in this moment. Finally, he rolls off her, kisses her palm as she gets up to use the bathroom. She leans back over him, his eyes dilating as her breasts swing near him. She grins, loves how much he loves her body, kisses his forehead, then saunters away.

She remembers one of her college friends telling her that they all had to savor every moment in life, because it was fleeting. Clarke remembers rolling her eyes at the worn out sentiment, but she thinks to herself that she understands now how precious moments like this are.

\--

When she wakes up in the morning, Bellamy is already up and in the shower, so she pulls on a sweater and sweatpants and wanders downstairs to get coffee started. She walks in to the kitchen to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table, one mug of coffee in her hands, and the other steaming beside her. Abby smiles, pats the chair next to her, and Clarke sinks down warily, gripping the mug and waiting for the inquisition.

She ends up waiting for a while, Abby sipping slowly at her coffee with a pensive look on her face. Finally, she turns to face Clarke, offers her a soft smile. “I’m glad you’re here Clarke. I – I recognize that this was a risk for you. I’m glad you felt that you could trust me.”

Clarke shrugs, feeling a little defensive, her hackles up. “We didn’t have a lot of options, to be honest." 

Abby nods. Clarke looks up from tracing designs on the wood of the table to see her mother watching her again. “You can tell me how you want to proceed, but I think it’s worth trying to talk to Thelonius. We don’t have a lot of other options, in my opinion, and I think he might be willing to talk to us. I’m not sure that it will matter, I’m not sure we can prevent him from siding with Dante, but it’s worth a try.”

Clarke nods. She wasn’t expecting to have many other options, in all honesty. They’re not revolutionaries, any of them, and for the most part, their government isn’t the kind that needs to be overthrown. It just – needs to recognize the rights of people to have their own agency.

“Are you still on good terms with Wells?” her mother asks.

“He asked me to be the godmother of their child,” Clarke whispers. She clears her throat “I said no, in part because I couldn’t travel out to the baptism. But also – I don’t think his wife would like me showing up, looking like I do.”

Clarke has managed to surround herself with people who don’t think she’s an oddity, but to the world at large, she’s still a freak. She was at Wells’ wedding, and his wife certainly looked at her with quite a bit of skepticism, and underlying that, Clarke sensed fear. It’s not that she dislikes Wells’ wife. On the contrary, she thinks quite highly of her. That doesn’t change the sting she felt.

Clarke meets her mother’s eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she sees compassion. She’s been long used to her mother’s judgment, and she thinks it’s an indication of how much her mother has changed that this is what she’s offering her daughter, rather than what she would have said years ago, pushing Clarke to conform.

“Well, it might be time to reach out, ask how she’s doing,” Abby says. “It can’t hurt, even just to find out how they’re doing.”

“What if that doesn’t work?” Clarke asks. She’s trying not to think of the worst case scenario, but she can’t totally help herself from asking, somewhat desperately. “What if Jaha doesn’t listen? What if – what if we can’t make this stop? I can’t go anywhere else. I’ve made my bed, and I’m lying in it, Mom. There aren’t other options for me, for any of us.”

Abby grips Clarke’s hand. “We’re going to figure it out. I don’t want to make promises, but we’re going to figure something out.”

Clarke nods, blinks back her tears. Abby kisses her forehead, wanders off to make some phone calls. When she looks back up, it’s to see Bellamy leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. She offers him a watery smile, and he wanders over to her, taking her mother’s spot.

“You never told me you knew the Chancellor,” he says, his tone carefully neutral.

Clarke considers her answer. She’s tried very hard to distance herself from her upbringing, but there’s no denying that she had an extremely privileged childhood. “I did,” she says, thinking. “For a while, he and my mom were friends. His son and I grew up together, and then our families grew apart. And I chose a very different path, cut off from my family. There’s no denying the way I grew up,” she says frankly, looking at Bellamy. “I didn’t bring it up because it wasn’t relevant. It’s part of me, but it’s not who I am now, isn’t who I have any interest in being.”

Bellamy nods slowly. “Still, you could have had everything, a high society life, a position in the government, if you’d wanted.”

Clarke laughs bitterly. “Could I, Bellamy? I don’t have a soulmark. Maybe I grew up with money, but it makes me a pariah just as much as it makes you the same way. I chose my own destiny. I wrote it across my skin in rebellion against the status quo.”

He grins at that. “You know I like it when you use Latin in everyday parlance,” he teases. “You’re using it to win this argument." 

She grins at him. “It doesn’t even have to be an argument, goof. I love this life. I love _you_ , status or no status. I’m not saying the way you, we grew up is irrelevant. Obviously it matters. I’m just saying, we also made different things of ourselves.” She reaches out, cups his face in her hands. “We are who we are because we had the opportunity to choose. That’s all I want for us. For everyone.”

“Such a revolutionary,” he mutters against her mouth. She laughs against his lips, only to be interrupted.

“Okay, this isn’t your house, folks, keep it to yourselves,” Octavia mutters, her hand over her eyes.

Clarke laughs, pulls away from Bellamy. “You seem better this morning,” she says.

“I have excellent caretakers,” Octavia says dryly. “Seriously where’s the coffee?”

The rest of the morning is like this: everyone slowly staggering into the kitchen, grabbing mugs, toast, settling in for the day. Clarke thinks that, for all they’re on the run, it feels weirdly like they’re on vacation, and she takes a moment to appreciate the people with her.

\--

It takes several days to get ahold of Thelonius, and when they’re invited to come speak to him in person, Clarke’s stomach ties itself in knots. She drinks peppermint tea at every interval in the day trying to calm herself down, worries about wearing sleeves and a full length skirt versus having her tattoos showing; she overthinks every little detail, until Bellamy is grumbling as they try to fall asleep, begging her to stop thinking so loudly.

The morning of, she pulls her hair up, wears a long skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, and kisses Bellamy before heading off.

Thelonius greets Abby and Clarke warmly, leads them into a sitting room. Lo and behold, Dante Wallace is also sitting down, and Clarke has to school her features to avoid scowling, or worse, jumping backwards. She shakes his hand stiffly when it’s offered, Jaha saying “I believe you’ve met, correct?” and Dante smiling cordially.

Clarke wants to throw something.

The conversation subsequently goes about as well as she expects, with Thelonius listening politely to Clarke as she talks about the women she’s “heard about” needing soulmarks covered up from abusive partners, about the importance of choice, and agency. She tries not to be too impassioned, but finally, she pleads, “Isn’t choice what separates us, makes us unique? How can we deny ourselves that possibility?”

Dante listens silently, a predatory expression on his face. He doesn’t speak the entire time they’re present, and ultimately, their tea ends, and Abby and Clarke excuse themselves without much hope. Still, they aren’t followed, and they arrive home safely, which is perhaps the best they could have hoped for.

Clarke collapses against Bellamy when they walk through the door, fights back her tears of frustration as he untangles her hair from its formal knot. “I assume it didn’t go well?” he asks softly.

“It didn’t go _poorly_ ,” Clarke mutters against his chest, her voice muffled by his t-shirt. “It just – nothing’s going to change. Dante was there, he heard the whole thing. He’s got Jaha in his back pocket.” She shakes her head, comes up for air. “I don’t know what we do next.” It breaks her heart a little, to know that there’s no good next step, no easy way for her to go back to Neverland, for their lives to return to normal. 

Raven mutters, “Someone needs to poison them. At least Dante.” 

All eyes shift to her, and she shrugs. “I’m not saying we _should_ , I’m just saying it would be convenient if they were _gone_. I’m not advocating murder,” she says defensively.

Still, Clarke wishes all-out war were possible. She thinks, then, that there could be some sort of resolution.

\--

They hear from Thelonius several days later, and the answer is exactly as they expected: no. Octavia stomps from the house into the yard, yells into the fog. Raven carefully and deliberately breaks everything she’s been working on since they got there, everything she and Wick have tinkered with. Clarke just stares out the window, stone-faced. She already knew.

They’re stuck, and she doesn’t know how to move forward from here.

\-- 

It’s almost two months later, the six of them plus Abby and Marcus practically crawling all over each other in the small house. They’re as polite as can be, really, but it’s too crowded, and everyone is tense and unhappy. Abby and Marcus still go to work each day, but the six house guests are more or less left to entertain themselves on a daily basis, and they’re slowly running out of things to do. Clarke has taken to seriously considering Raven’s thought about Dante Wallace, and it’s concerning to her that she’s even thinking like this.

The thing is, it _would_ be convenient if either Dante or Jaha, or both of them, just happened to die. But Clarke doesn’t want to kill anybody, would never ask anyone else to take on that task. She’s not sure _what_ to do at this point, only knows that she wants her studio back, wants the feeling of a tattoo machine between her hand again, the vibration as it sets ink to skin. She wants to do her goddamn job.

It’s an understatement to say that it’s a shock (and sort bizarrely relieving) when they hear that Dante has died, apparently of a heart attack. It seems not only entirely fortuitous, but frighteningly well-timed, and Clarke is immediately worried that they’re going to be suspects (feels superstitiously like she willed this outcome into being). Still, they’re never called upon to testify, and there are rumors that it was an inside job, that his son killed him, that there was a cop in his organization that took him down, that a rival arranged a hit.

Clarke wants to celebrate, but she knows that this isn’t it; it just means they’re a little bit safer, not that they can go back to work.

That’s where Wells comes in, Wells and his wife and daughter. Clarke left a voicemail when they moved in with Abby and Marcus, and while she never heard back directly from Wells, she can see his fingerprints all over the new announcement by the government that there have been rogue agents targeting tattoo artists, and this will be stopped. The laws around tattooing will be undergoing inspection to make possible adjustments, and while tattoo artists are asked to hold off on further tattoos until the laws are re-finalized, there is every indication that they will be able to go back to work, and hopefully go back to work with fewer restrictions.

Clarke isn’t holding out hope that this will be true, but it’s a promising start. When she gets the call from Wells, her suspicions are confirmed, and he volunteers that his wife was instrumental in appealing to his father’s sensibilities, largely because she has been so suspicious of Clarke’s tattoos in the first place.

Clarke wants to kiss that woman.

\--

It takes time, is the thing. They wait a couple of weeks to see how everything shakes down in Dante’s organization, but when no one immediately rises to power, and it seems like it’s largely disbanding, Clarke kisses her mother’s cheek, shakes Marcus’s hand, and they all go home. She squeezes Bellamy’s hand when they stand on the steps of their house. It might be months still before she can go back to work, but they’ve come out on top, she thinks. It’s still going to be a long time to change people’s ideas, but she’s given them the _chance_ , the possibility to make their own choices, write their own stories across flesh and bone, and this, this is the thing she’s most proud of in the world.


End file.
